NASA has selected the name "Tranquility" for the International Space Station's new living quarters, not only rejecting attempts by Comedy Central's Steven Colbert to get the new node named after himself but also largely ignoring a popular vote on the subject.
Despite "Colbert" winning the space agency's Help Name Node 3 online …

voting?

Mistake

Perhaps the problem was that they had forgotten that Serenity was also the name of the movie version of the popular TV series Firefly. And the theme of that show could suggest that it is a disguised Western set in the post-Civil War period, creating political controversy.

they should have named it Cookie

Jump off a bridge

If you are going to make a public vote for something within a federal funded institution, you should stick by the results. Colbert would have been rediculous of course, but if the competition was fair I say give him his piece of space junk.

Serenity Now!

common sense

Serenity

There is no reason for them not to use Serenity (which was also the name of the ship in firefly, not just the film) since they already used Enterprise. My guess is that they will save it for a shuttle or something rather than just part of the ISS

@Jump off a bridge

wot? no democracy?

Nice to see NASA have finally realised that you get nowhere in space under a democracy. The Russians, were always more innovative for this reason. Even the International Astronomical Union were sly enough to vote out Pluto from the league of extraordinary planets before the nay-sayers could get to the relevant conference.

"Get sweaty on the COLBERT"

EUREKA!!! Problem Solved!

As that damn piss-filter can recover airborne moisture*, no sweat!

(Oops...)

*"In more positive developments, it seems that recycling equipment designed to harvest and reprocess astronauts' emitted body moisture from the station atmosphere is working fine" from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/23/new_upa_still_playing_up/

@Nathan Hobbs

@ AC

I agree that NASA might be saving 'Serenity' for an actual ship-like thing, cause like you said, they did it with Enterprise! Plus, I could imagine a very marketing-savvy person at NASA seeing the potential benefit in getting a group of people that can so effectively write letters and petition and in general kick up a fuss about not getting what they want (again, like the Trekkies) interested in what they're doing...

Tranquility...

@ Petrea Mitchell

There were three Enterprises in the British Navy way before you damn Yankees started up with the whole "pinching our naval glories" bit. Oh, and three Enterprizes, which would seem to be a better candidate for a name for a US naval vessel, given the poor standards of spelling evident on the other side of the Atlantic.